


satellite heart

by seventhstar



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Crossdressing Kink, Gemsex, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Prostitution, mentioned only tho dont worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-21 16:58:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3700034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhstar/pseuds/seventhstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wanted love and affection, but he would settle for a facsimile thereof.</p>
<p>Too much drinking, he thought, and I don’t even have a crossdresser kink. Probably.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rangerhitomi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/gifts).



Two beers in, Durbe decided everything was Nasch’s fault.

This was despite the fact that he’d gotten the beer out of Nasch’s apartment, because Yuuma bought expensive craft beer (and Nasch was a plebian who drank Everclear straight out of the bottle.) It was fine. He had a spare key for a reason, right?

But everything was Nasch’s fault.

Nasch was the person who’d been Durbe’s best friend first, when they’d been two small Barian outcasts in a school filled with humans, and Nasch was the one who’d introduced him to the rest of his friends, and Nasch was the person who’d made him realize he was gay, and therefore Durbe’s current loneliness was his fault, because he was on vacation with his husband and Alit.

Also, Durbe held Nasch personally responsible for his inability to get a date, because he and Yuuma had gotten married two days after Yuuma graduated high school and Durbe was convinced that somehow the two of them were using up all the romance in the vicinity, leaving none for Durbe at all.

Alit was single too. It was perfectly logical. Durbe stared into his third beer.

Then he stared at the ad from Craigslist he’d printed out last week, while he was drinking the last of his wine. (Durbe only allowed himself to drink away his sorrows once a week. He believed strongly in scheduling everything, including emotions.)

The ad was for sex. Three drinks in, Durbe no longer felt any shame about having it. A fourth drink, he thought, would be nice, just for courage, but he’d only scheduled himself three and he hated to deviate.

The email address was right there. He was lonely, and the thought of having to go out and pick someone up was depressing.

He wanted love and affection, but he would settle for a facsimile thereof.

_Too much drinking,_ he thought, _and I don_ _’t even have a crossdresser kink. Probably._

He glanced at the blurry selfie that had been posted with the ad. Long legs, long hair, pink lips. _Okay,_ he thought, _maybe I do. That_ _’s fine. I’m perfectly normal._

He closed his eyes. He was desperate and pathetic. Maybe it wasn’t his nerdiness, or the fact that he was a Barian with enough power to register on the Ursa Minor scale, or his sexuality that drove people away. Maybe he was just unlovable.

Somehow he’d started composing an email on his phone. He’d misspelled “the”, as well as his own name.

_I like your hte face, please come over._

_541 97th Ave_

_Apt 9B_

_\-- Durube_

  
He attached a selfie. His eyes looked huge.

Then he hit send, and laughed out loud at himself, at everything, and slumped back against the sofa, and wished past Durbe had known he’d need another beer.

For the third time that night, he listened to his voicemail. Nasch had called earlier, to complain about Durbe watering his plants, voice filled with thinly veiled concern. Gilag had called to invite him out next weekend. A co-worker wanted to know if Durbe could advise him about his current project at work.

It made him feel better and lonelier at the same time.

He got up and wandered around the apartment, bottle of water in hand. There were books everywhere -- he’d even converted the second bedroom into a library -- and a map of the world on the wall with pins everywhere he’d been. A terribly drawn portrait of himself a classmate had done during his undergrad. No dishes in the sink, no clothes on his bedroom floor, no clutter except the books. Barianite clusters in the corners glowed faintly.

It looked boring. It looked like the apartment of a man who put out a bottle of water for himself before he started drinking.

_Oh, god,_ he thought, _what if that guy from the ad does come over, and he laughs --_

He sat down on the couch again and worried through half a laughable documentary about Ancient Rome. He’d have to show Alit later.

There was a knock at the door.

Durbe froze. He looked down at himself -- he was wearing light blue pajamas -- and then at the door in bewilderment.

He grabbed the bottle of water again and drank, frantically, before scrambling to the door.

It was him. He was very pretty, the pictures hadn’t done him justice -- he had long dark lashes and shiny golden hair, and he was dressed in a pink skirt and crop top, and black stockings -- Durbe’s stomach flipped over in excitement.

He was gorgeous.

And familiar.

“...Durbe?”

“ _Mizael?_ ” Durbe gaped at him.

It had been his senior year of college, five years ago. He’d had to do a semester of art history to meet his art elective requirement. Durbe was the kind of person who only took electives with the word history in the title (alright, there had been that one class about horses) but that had been a mistake.

Art history had been awful. The professor had wanted them to be artists, not just study them. He and Mizael had been partners on the semester long final project. They’d hung out a lot during that time: doing research in the library eating their way through entire pizzas while they tried and failed to do accurate portraits of each other, coffee in the mornings on their way to the two hour lecture.

Durbe had had a crush then, had said nothing, and they’d lost contact after graduation, when Mizael went off to China for grad school. He’d thought --

His lipstick was the same color as the markings on his cheeks. There were matching magenta lines curling around his bare arms, slicing up his sides and disappearing under his shirt. Durbe instantly wanted to touch them, see how far down they went, lick them —

Durbe swallowed.

Mizael was the only Barian he’d ever met with such visible alien attributes in human form. Even Nasch only had a bloodred left eye. There was something incredibly attractive about that, about knowing that Mizael wouldn’t be frightened by Durbe’s inhuman strength or cringe if he sprouted gems in bed. He might even do the same.

_There is zero chance he will want to have sex with you,_ Durbe reminded his libido.

“I thought you were in China,” he said.

“You still live in Heartland?” Mizael said incredulously.

“I manage one of the Arclight labs,” Durbe said. He couldn’t quite keep the pride out of his voice. “The Pegasus Facility on 28th Avenue.”

Mizael scowled. “Tch.”

Durbe looked down. Mizael was wearing black velvet heels, and he had beautiful calves. For a brief moment, he wished a stranger had showed up instead.

Then he winced inwardly. It couldn’t be pleasant for Mizael to show up for…to show up for work and find Durbe there instead. What was he doing, just standing there and gaping at him?

“Do you want to come in?”

Mizael opened his mouth. He shut it again, and his teeth ground together. “No.”

“Right,” Durbe said, “I just,”

“I’d rather remember you as —” Mizael pounded his fist against the door frame. It cracked. “I should go.”

“I have a documentary about dragons and delicious beer!” Durbe reached for his hand, then stopped himself. “I mean — we don’t — I can still pay you — I need someone else to drink the rest of this beer.”

“You want me to drink your beer.”

“Yes! Literally.”

Mizael looked confused. He shifted, his heels clicking against the floor of the hallway. Durbe suddenly remembered he had neighbors and prayed none of them came out to investigate.

“…fine.” He came inside.

Durbe shut the door behind them both.

 


	2. two

Durbe spent ten minutes fumbling around in his cabinet for the documentary that he knew was actually on his DVR to calm himself. Behind him, Mizael was drinking a beer (leaving a deep pink lip print on the glass of the bottle), legs crossed. The skirt had slid up two inches when he’d sat down, not enough to be indecent but enough to make Durbe’s face burn.

Mizael was even wearing mascara. His lashes had been long and dark as he looked up at Durbe while he handed him the beer.

In between moments of arousal, Durbe tried not to think about why Mizael was advertising his body on Craigslist in women’s clothing and make up. He didn’t think the question would go over well.

But still he wondered. Mizael had been an excellent student, even if he was a little abrasive. He’d qualified for an overseas graduate program. What had happened over the last few years?

“What is this?” Mizael asked. Durbe looked over his shoulder; he was holding up the beer.

“Nasch’s husband imports it from Australia.”

Mizael choked. “His husband?”

“What?”

“I thought you two were together.”

Durbe laughed. “He got married when he was a freshmen. Everyone told him it was terrible idea. I told him it was a terrible idea.”

“You too were always together.”

“Yuuma was studying abroad that semester.” Durbe shrugged. “I considered packing Nasch into a crate and mailing him to Europe, but I thought it might be a problem if he died.”

He closed the cabinet and drank from his bottle of water. “I might have recorded that documentary.”

Durbe snagged the remote from the remote caddy. He found the documentary MODERN MYTH: DRAGONS IN POPULAR CULTURE and hit play. He dimmed the lights halfway, refilled his bottle, yelled into the living room to offer Mizael snacks.

He refused them.

Out of excuses, Durbe came back into the living room and sat gingerly on the opposite end of the couch, as far away from Mizael as possible. It wasn’t far; it was a small sofa. He was gripping his bottle so hard water was sloshing out onto his lap. He stared determinedly at the television, and not at Mizael, whose face was glittering slightly in the blue light of the screen.

The documentary began with an introduction to the history of dragons, which could have come straight from Durbe’s Encyclopedia of Mythical Creatures and which did absolutely nothing to hold his attention.

What would Nasch do in this situation?

 _Oh, god,_ Durbe thought. _I_ _’m using Nasch as a role model. The third beer was a mistake._

He watched the documentary.

Mizael was fidgeting, two feet away from him. Durbe was hyperaware of the noise, even over the sound of the documentary. It was impossible, Durbe knew, but it felt like the air on the side Mizael was sitting was warmer.

The documentary dragged on and on and on, and Mizael made more and more and more noise, and Durbe kept sneaking glances out of the corner of his eye, aware of the irony, that this incredibly attractive man was in his apartment just as he had wished, and neither of them were having any fun.

He couldn’t hold back a sigh of relief when the credits began to roll.

“Mizael, I —”

“I don’t need your pity,” Mizael burst out before he could finish.

“What?”

“I’m fine!”

“You’re prostituting yourself out on Craigslist,” Durbe said.

Whatever Mizael had expected him to say, it wasn’t that, because he fell silent. He was tense, fists clenched, shoulders hunched. He looked like he was going to attack, although Durbe doubted he would. Mizael had been short-tempered at school, but not violently so.

“Do you…do you want to sit down?”

“I should go.”

“Mizael, please.”

“Durbe —”

“I’m trying to be kind,” Durbe said, because the truth had worked once before already.

Mizael snorted. He sat down on the couch again. “Why did you call me?”

Durbe looked down. His face was burning. “I had too many drinks and I was lonely.”

“Tch. Everyone in this fucking city is lonely.”

“Really?” Durbe leaned back against the couch. Suddenly he was tired. “It feels like it’s just me.”

“Trust me.” Mizael reached over and cracked open a second beer. He took a long gulp, and Durbe did not allow himself to watch him swallow. “It isn’t.”

They fell silent. Mizael drank again, and Durbe picked up the remote and turned off the television. They sat there in the dim room, among Durbe’s books and the end tables he’d brought from his first apartment in college, and they said nothing for a while.

Durbe could see the tension slowly leaving Mizael’s body as his back loosened, and his fists became open palms on his knees, and he leaned back against the sofa, too, mirroring Durbe’s pose.

“I’ll make you a deal,” Durbe murmured. “I’ll answer one of your questions every time you’ll answer one of mine.”

“You don’t want to know.”

“I do.”

Mizael nodded.

“Is that ad…what you do?”

Mizael closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, Durbe caught the telltale glow before it vanished. Something in him twisted at the sight of that tiny loss of control.

“What’s your Ursa Minor score?”

“Six.” Durbe had been measured when he was seven and he first manifested; he suspected he was probably higher than that, now, but he didn’t want to know enough to risk having a higher score on his record. And luckily, he’d never had an employer ask. Durbe didn’t disclose that he was a Barian, and his identifying paperwork remained right where it was, under the bed in a briefcase.

“Nine,” Mizael said.

“Over eight you’re required to disclose.”

“No one would hire me at first.” Mizael gestured at his face. “And then when someone finally did, they fired me because I glowed when I was angry.”

Mizael’s degree had been in graphic design, Durbe recalled. He used to always have some art project in the corner of his dorm room going; Durbe would make excuses to work there, so he could see the progression of Mizael’s work.

“No offense,” Durbe said, “but I don’t understand how that led to you…” He gestured at Mizael in lieu of the word.

“How did you end up hiring a prostitute?”

Durbe squirmed, ashamed. “I was lonely.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all. I…I have difficulty finding dates.”

Mizael drank from his beer again. “My roommate in China was a make up artist.” He slammed the bottle down on the end table. “She used to practice on me. Ask me to model clothes for her. Do my hair.”

He sighed and pushed an errant strand of golden hair out of his face.

“You’re good at it,” Durbe said. Mizael looked furious, and he hastened to add, “No, I mean, you’re good at applying make up and dressing yourself, my boss once pulled me aside to tell me I looked like a hipster —”

Mizael laughed. “You used to wear long socks and scarves in the summer.”

“Mizael, you dressed like a pigeon. People used to make flapping motions behind your back.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“I can’t believe you have can’t find dates,” Mizael said. “You don’t even look like a Barian.”

“That doesn’t help. They think I’m prematurely aged.”

Mizael barked out a laugh.

Durbe went on, “Once people find out, they just —” Durbe waved his hand towards the door. “I frighten them.”

Sometimes Durbe could even laugh about it, how many seemingly pleasant boyfriends Durbe had driven off just by mentioning that he was a Barian. A few had stayed around to ask about his Ursa Minor score, or to ask him to shift, or to immediately suggest a wildly improbable sex act. (Those guys Durbe dumped himself.)

“And there’s nothing you can do about it! Everything frightens humans!”

“My left eye changes color when I sneeze,” Durbe said sagely. “My neighbor still won’t speak to me.”

“No one wanted me.” Mizael bit his lip. “This — this was easier.”

Durbe couldn’t think of anything to say. He could imagine it — Mizael, already branded by his obvious Barianhood, by how powerful he was — Mizael, being rejected, if not because he was a Barian, then because he wasn’t employed or because he wasn’t good at pretending to be harmless, the way Durbe had learned to be.

He pushed his glasses up his nose.

“You deserve better.”

“Tch.”

Mizael’s dismissal was painful. Not because it hurt Durbe’s feelings, but because Durbe suspected he didn’t believe him.

“You should talk to Nasch.” Durbe prayed Nasch wouldn’t be angry with him when he came back and found out Durbe was forcing him to interact with people again. “He’s high on the Ursa Minor scale too, and despite his personality, he’s employed.”

“How high?”

“Thirteen.”

“The Ursa Minor scale only goes to ten.”

“I know.” Durbe shrugged. “He’s listed as an eight officially. His parents bribed the xenobiologist.”

Mizael’s eyebrows rose. “He looks normal.”

“Being a Barian doesn’t make you abnormal,” Durbe said sharply.

He caught Mizael’s wrist.

“I know that! But when you say that, humans —” Mizael broke off.

“Have you been to the BPC?” The Barian Pride Center existed to fight these kinds of battles, Durbe thought. He tried to remember who was on the board of the Heartland Chapter, other than Merag.

“Of course not.” Mizael flushed. “I’m not starving — it would be wasting resources other Barians need —”

He was proud. Something warm bubbled up in Durbe’s chest. It was nice, he thought, to be with someone who didn’t treat him like he was dangerous, who he could really talk to.

Not that this was a date, he thought, and then he looked down and realized he was still holding Mizael’s wrist. It was warm, the skin soft, Mizael’s pulse beneath his fingers steady.

Somehow they’d both ended sitting in the center of the sofa. Their knees were touching. Mizael had leaned in; Durbe could smell his shampoo.

“Anyway,” Durbe began, and Mizael kissed him roughly on the mouth.

His teeth caught Durbe’s lower lip, sucking. One of his hands was on Durbe’s chest, nails digging into through the fabric. He pressed in on Durbe, pushing him back against the arm of the sofa behind him; strands of his hair tickled Durbe’s face.

Durbe clung to him, set alit by the warmth of his body against his, feeling Mizael’s tongue flick wetly against his, making soft liquid noises --

His brain reasserted itself and he broke away.

“We shouldn’t,” he whispered.

Mizael glared at him. “Why?”

“I don’t think I’m sober enough for you to enjoy it,” Durbe admitted.

Mizael stared at him. His expression was odd, but he didn’t look too disappointed. He didn’t get up, anyways, so Durbe slid his arms around him again.

His fingers brushed up against the thin nylon over Mizael’s thigh.

“Durbe.”

“We could cuddle?”

Mizael sat up again. He smoothed his hair awkwardly as Durbe fumbled with his scarf and his collar, both of which had ended up loosened. He was missing a button. He looked around the room, had the brief urge to clean up, and suppressed it.

He led Mizael by the arm down the hallway, into his bedroom. The bed was made, and he yanked back the covers.

“Do you want to borrow something to sleep in?”

“Yes.”

Durbe dug a pair of pajama pants out of his dresser and threw them at him. “The bathroom is across the hall.”

While Mizael ducked out to change, Durbe stripped down and put on his least embarrassing pajamas. They were dark blue with white piping, and probably didn’t make him look like an old man. He lay down on the bed, against the wall so that Mizael could take the side nearest the door, and took off his glasses.

Everything blurred pleasantly.

The door opened and closed. Mizael appeared at the bedside. He’d washed off the make up and put on the pants Durbe had lent him, he set a pink and black bundle on top of his handbag on the nightstand.

“You have lipstick all over your face,” Mizael mumbled as he slid in beside Durbe. He pulled up the covers, and he wound his arms around Durbe’s waist, and his face pressed against the back of Durbe’s shoulder.

Durbe covered Mizael’s hand on his stomach with his own. “In the morning,” he said, and then he closed his eyes.


	3. three

He didn’t wake Mizael when the sunlight coming through the blinds woke him. He fumbled for an aspirin and the bottle of water in his nightstand, trying not to jostle Mizael as he downed both, but Mizael never so much as twitched. Durbe lay there, his glasses on, waiting as the painkillers took effect and his headache receded, and listened to Mizael breathe.

It was soothing. All the lines in Mizael’s face vanished when he slept, all the creases and furrows of stress absent when he dreamed. Durbe watched him, and thought about nothing.

It was almost noon when Mizael finally stirred.

He opened one eye. “Durbe?”

Durbe smiled. He nudged Mizael with his elbow, and was elbowed sharply in the ribs for his trouble. “Breakfast?”

Mizael rubbed his eyes. He nuzzled into Durbe’s shoulder.

“I have...waffles.” Durbe tried to remember what was in his fridge. He had bought groceries this week, but it was possible ‘groceries’ had consisted of vinegar, cheese, and a large organic zucchini. “And...eggs.”

“You once set your dorm room on fire,” Mizael recalled, his expression suggesting he was rapidly reconsidering breakfast.

“That was years ago. I’m an adult.”

Mizael looked dubious.

“Go brush your teeth. I’ll make you an omelette.”

“Don’t die,” Mizael said dryly, and he rolled out of bed and snagged his purse on the way to the bathroom. Durbe didn’t get up at first; he was trying to remember how to make an omelette, and wondering why a man with as many books as he did didn’t own any cookbooks.

He went into the guest bathroom to brush his teeth and wash his face. He picked at his hair with a comb before giving up up on it. Durbe glanced at the bathroom door as he passed -- Mizael was humming -- before he went into the kitchen.

There were three eggs, and half a pack of toaster waffles. The vegetable drawer produced half a green bellpepper and two small cloves of garlic in a plastic bag. He did not have milk, or butter, or bread. He also didn’t have any maple syrup.

Durbe removed a tub of strawberry cream cheese to put on the waffles and popped two of them in the toaster. Then he cracked the eggs, spent twenty minutes using a plastic spoon to fish out bits of eggshell from the bowl, and mixed the them. He grated the bellpepper, because chopping would take too long, and then he grated the garlic along with a bit of his thumb.

“Durbe, you’re bleeding,” Mizael said. Durbe kept his thumb under the running faucet.

“I’m fine. Hand me those bandages.”

“Durbe,” Mizael said again, and this time Durbe looked at him.

He was wearing a sundress. And lipstick. And as far as Durbe could tell, nothing else.

“Cabinet,” he croaked. He pointed vaguely in its direction.

Mizael found Durbe’s first aid kit and brought it over. He pulled Durbe’s hand out of the water and examined it; he’d scraped it bloody, but it was shallow. It stung as Mizael rinsed it off with rubbing alcohol, but Durbe was watched the neckline of Mizael’s dress, his prominent collarbones, and was suitably distracted.

Durbe reached for the kitchen towel to stem the bleeding and Mizael snapped it away.

“That’s filthy -- hold still.”

He bandaged Durbe’s finger efficiently, taping a square of dry gauze over the scrape. Durbe flexed his thumb; the pain was minimal, and Mizael’s hands were skilled.

“You can’t cook.”

“Of course I can. Anyone can make eggs.”

Mizael’s dress was pale grey, patterned with enormous sunflowers. The straps were thin and the neckline was cut wide and low across his chest; the skirt flared out around his knees. His arms and legs were a shade darker than his face was. He’d switched to a red lipstick instead of the pink of the night before. Durbe kept expected it to be incongruous, to laugh, but he couldn’t stop looking.

If Mizael was embarrassed about either his clothes, or his makeup, he gave none of it away. Despite the circumstances, he had absolute confidence.

Durbe gave himself permission to stare.

He poured the eggs and the bellpepper and the garlic into a coffee mug and covered it with an open sandwich bag. He stirred it while Mizael looked on in what Durbe decided was fascination, not horror, and then he put the mug in the microwave.

“No.”

“It’s efficient,” Durbe assured him. “And my stove is broken.”

Mizael looked at him.

Durbe turned the microwave on.

He watched Mizael’s hair flutter through the faint breeze through Durbe’s kitchen window, and Mizael watched the eggs bubble in what Durbe was forced to admit to himself was disgust.

He and Mizael had made mug cakes once, to celebrate their project proposal’s acceptance, and they had been awful -- raw, warm cake batter, with a rim of burnt flour around the edge of the mug, the cooked yolk of an egg floating in the middle. They’d thrown them out and eaten pizza instead.

That had been nothing like this, and yet it was.

Mizael bit his lip, teeth stark and white against his bright red mouth.

Durbe thought, wildly, about kissing him. The microwave beeped, ending what was perhaps the longest minute of Durbe’s life.

“It’s done.”

“It’s disgusting.”

“I eat microwaved eggs everyday, you know,” Durbe said.

Mizael swatted his hand away from the microwave door. “Durbe.”

“Yes?”

“I’m going back to bed.” Mizael pushed past him, out of the kitchen. “Join me. Leave the eggs there.”

“Ah,” Durbe began. He couldn’t of anything to say in the face of Mizael’s expression, or to the back of his head as he stalked down the hallway and into Durbe’s bedroom.

For a moment Durbe couldn’t move, filled with shame and guilt and the niggling feeling that Mizael was humoring him or acting out of obligation, and then he thought about the way Mizael had wandered into his kitchen and complained about his cooking.

 _Stop ruining things for yourself before they_ _’ve even started,_ he thought, and he followed.

 


	4. four

Mizael’s dress didn’t have a back, either.

He was facing away from the door, so Durbe could see the muscles of his back under the skin, the way they moved as Mizael stretched. Did he work out, or was it artifact muscle, something he’d been born with because he was a Barian? He had looked slighter, somehow, yesterday.

He had two curved, dark pink lines swooping under his shoulder blades.

“I’ve decided not to eat the eggs,” Durbe said. He immediately regretted it.

Mizael turned and looked at him over his shoulder. “And?”

“And,” Durbe said, searching for something romantic or seductive or meaningful to say, and coming up with nothing. He stepped forward; one, two, three.

Mizael’s shoulder was warm and solid under Durbe’s palm.

They kissed.

Mizael’s mouth moved against his, hot and wet. His lipstick smelled like vanilla. Durbe caught him around the waist; the fabric was soft. Mizael held his head, fingers winding through Durbe’s bedhead, stroking the back of his neck.

“Mm…” Mizael’s tongue traced a line down the palate of Durbe’s mouth.

His hand wandered down Durbe’s back, slid under his shirt. Durbe tried not to flinch; he was in good shape, but Mizael was in better shape. Mizael felt along the line of his spine, bump by bump, lower and lower…

Durbe bit at Mizael’s lip, and slid his thumbs underneath the thin straps of his dress. He pulled.

It fell to the floor, a pool of grey and yellow around Mizael’s ankles.

Mizael pulled him closer; so that their bodies were pressed close; Durbe could feel Mizael’s heartbeat against his skin, the way it seemed to match the pounding of blood in Durbe’s ears. Durbe felt down Mizael’s sides, over his ribs, dipping his in thumbs into the hollows of his hips, down over deliciously solid thighs.

Mizael’s palm flattened against the base of his spine, his fingertips underneath the waistband of Durbe’s pants. His knee pressed between Durbe’s legs.

Durbe was suddenly, painfully aroused, and the skin on his chest was starting to heat up.

“Should we — bed?”

“Yeah,” Mizael said, and he manhandled Durbe onto the bed roughly. He tugged at Durbe’s collar with a little too much force; he lost a few buttons. They clattered loudly to the floor.

Durbe lay down on the bed where Mizael had been sleeping earlier, his shirt fallen open. He fluttered his fingertips over his sternum, where he could feel the heat building.

Mizael prodded the torn bits of his shirt front. “Sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry.

“Ex-boyfriend gave them to me,” Durbe said. His voice was distorted — his vocal cords transformed when he was nervous — and he flinched. He’d had more than one partner leave right after they heard the gargling-rocks sound of a Barian’s voice.

Mizael made a pleased noise and bent to suck at Durbe’s throat. He licked just under his chin and kissed his way down, stopping to lick into the dip at the base of his throat, then dragging his lips over Durbe’s collarbones and leaving the pink stain of his lipstick behind. Durbe whimpered.

He was blushing; his throat was red enough the marks were hardly visible.

 _I should do something,_ Durbe thought, although thinking was becoming difficult.

“I — I could,” Durbe said. He gestured with his free arm, squeezing Mizael’s bare waist with the other.

“I can do it,” Mizael replied. He bent his head to Durbe’s collarbone again.

“You don’t have to. I _want_ to, I…” Durbe trailed off as he felt something hard prod at his stomach. He nudged Mizael up.

Armor was starting to form on his chest, and a dark pink gem was emerging from the skin. He was a midline, Durbe noted absently; that was the most common presentation of gems anatomically. Durbe was skewed left; his gem was set where his heart would be, when he was human.

“Ah.”

Mizael colored then. He looked away from Durbe, and the armor started to melt back into his skin smoothly. Mesmerized, Durbe almost forgot to speak.

“Wait — no, you can leave it.”

Mizael blinked at him. He looked surpirsed, and Durbe’s heart suddenly ached; of course, none of his previous…clients…had been interested in that level of intimacy.

Durbe traced around the gem with a fingertip. Mizael inhaled sharply.

“You might not like what you see,” he whispered, but he leaned into the touch., and the armor started to spread down his stomach in a twisted helix shape.

Durbe tugged aside the remains of his shirt to show his central gem, half formed and glowing faintly. “You might not, either.”

They looked at each other. Durbe’s hand was still on Mizael’s chest; he could feel the heartbeat, but it was getting fainter, like he was changing from the inside out. Flesh turning to stone.

Durbe shivered. Anyone could fuck Mizael, he thought, but this — this was true and vulnerable and the most enjoyable thing anyone could do with him.

He didn’t say anything else. He just sat up and pulled off his shirt and let it drop to the floor, and then he shoved down his pants.

Mizael glanced deliberately downward.

“I have armor down there, I’ll shred them,” Durbe murmured. He took off his glasses and set them carefully down on the floor.

And then he let himself change.

His eyes closed automatically, and the heat tha had been sitting below his breastbone spread, in every direction, in every vein. The pulse in his ears stuttered out, and Mizael was suddenly there in a way he hadn’t been before as Durbe’s sense of energy intensified. He could feel the Barianite growing all over the apartment, and his own faint field in the bed were he slept every night, and Mizael right there, radiant with power, so much Durbe actually trembled at the proximity of it.

When he opened his eyes, Mizael was glowing. His mouth and nose had been folded into his face — he had a partial mask with armor that arched out to one side — and the pink marks on his cheeks had become rings of red around his eyes.

He had the same hair. Durbe played with a strand; it was as soft as it was in human form, and warmer now.

There was fabric brushing Durbe’s legs; he looked further down the yellow lines of Mizael’s body to see a long, full skirt beneath his belt armor. It was slit up one side, enough for Durbe to confirm his hypothesis that Mizael had been blessed with artifact muscle.

He was beautiful. Durbe said so.

“What?”

“I like your shoulders,” Durbe said. He ran a hand over the points. “They’re elegant.”

Mizael dragged the tips of his claws over Durbe’s shoulder gem. Sparks flew. Durbe moaned in pleasure, and the gem lit.

He saw a flash of — something. A blue sky. A grey mountain. _Happiness._

“Here,” Durbe said. He stroked the gem embedded over Mizael’s hip, and saw stars.

He was emboldened by the way Mizael’s field was curving in around him possessively; there was so much energy there the color of the air was changing. Durbe had never seen anything like it.

It was immensely satisfying to provoke that kind of reaction in him.

Mizael adjusted him again. His hand was still on Durbe’s shoulder, and the pressure was unbearably pleasant, and he was getting a steady stream of hesitant affection and wind in his hair and Mizael thinking too much.

Mizael’s central gem brushed over Durbe’s.

Something snapped, probably the bed, but Durbe didn’t hear it, or see it, or even realize anything had happened.

He was lost in another world, somewhere deep in Mizael’s heart and there was pain.

He was alone somewhere — and then the heavens opened and there was so much light, golden and pure, and it made Durbe’s body sing in pleasure — and there was the sky again, getting closer and larger, some far off memory of ecstasy that Durbe felt like it was his own — and somewhere the sun glinted off clean metal and the smell of it made him happy — and somewhere Mizael was thinking Durbe’s name —

Durbe saw his own mind for a brief second, his mind and Mizael’s mind at the same time, when they were too close to tell apart and they were flying somewhere long ago and Mizael was seeing Durbe’s memory of how they’d once argued about tequila for two hours and Durbe had prolonged the argument because he had no good reason to stay —

And then there was nothing but light and heat and pleasure, and Durbe heard a scream, perhaps his, perhaps Mizael’s, and then his skin began to soften and pale and it was over.

His sense of Mizael’s power disappeared. Durbe mourned it.

“Ah.” Mizael’s face was buried in his neck. “Durbe.”

“Mizael.” Durbe held him. “Stay?”

“You say that like I could move,” Mizael grumbled, and he rolled over so that he wasn’t obstructing Durbe’s breathing anymore. Durbe snuggled into his side.

He didn’t mean to fall asleep, but Mizael’s breathing became deep and even, and Durbe’s followed.

 


	5. five

His cell phone was ringing shrilly.

Durbe had no idea where his phone was, and Mizael had ended up asleep on top of him, and he wasn’t wearing his glasses, and it took him several painful minutes to finally fish it out form under his bed without waking Mizael up.

“What?” he hissed.

“Don’t what me, you fucker, you haven’t answered your phone in two days!” Nasch was yelling.

“I’m fine.”

“The last time you called, you were drinking and crying.” Nasch said _crying_ like it was a sin. “Did you leave us any beer?”

“You hate that beer.”

“Stop breaking into my apartment to drink beer and cry!”

“I’m not crying!”

“…wait, is someone there? Why’s he whispering?” Alit asked.

Of course. Nasch had him on speaker. Durbe pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Are we cockblocking you?” Alit asked.

“…no. No. Alit —”

“He got laid! High five!”

Durbe closed his eyes. It was still dark. He could hang up and go back to cuddling and convince Mizael to make him eggs in the morning.

“I can’t high five you. We’re on the phone.”

“Nasch? Alit? What are you guys doing?” It was Yuuma. Durbe breathed a sigh of relief.

“We’re—”

“Goodbye,” Durbe said, and hung up, confident that Nasch’s desire to never talk about anyone else’s sex life in front of his husband would keep him from calling back. He’d just have to text Alit, and remind him Alit owed him money.

“Nnn.” Mizael groaned. He opened one eye to stare at Durbe; it glowed in the dark.

“Shh,” Durbe said. He lay back down, in the warmth, and let Mizael roll back onto him. He still had all of tomorrow before the weekend was over.

 


End file.
